Mailing List Archive: exim: users

Re: Administrivia: Take down requests

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woods at most

Apr 25, 2002, 2:46 PM

Post #1 of 8 (942 views)
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Re: Administrivia: Take down requests

[. On Thursday, April 25, 2002 at 10:26:29 (+0100), Ryan Cartwright wrote: ]
> Subject: Re[2]: [Exim] Administrivia: Take down requests
>
> The archives are a valuable resource and perhaps Nigel should get us all
> to resubscribe so that we can affirm we have no objection to our posts
> being in them.

You should be aware that for all intents and purposes your posts to a
public mailing list are effectively freely redistributable, and if as a
result they and up in any archives then they are at best covered
individually by your personal copyright (though you've implicitly waived
your right to control redistribution alone or in a collective work), as
well as a copyright on the collective work (the archive itself and all
its contents as a whole) owned by whomever created the archive. If you
don't want to waive your rights to control redistribution of your
writings then you shouldn't post them to a public mailing list in the
first place!

Now as to the niggling little "personal" details that might be attached
to any of your posts (such as your name and your e-mail address and
whatever sundry info you might put in your signature), well I think
anyone who thinks they can use a privacy law to have that information
protected is at least very naive, if not just plain insane.

The best way to retract your postings to any public forum (mailing list
or newsgroup) has always been to ensure anyone finding it in their
search results will also find your retraction, and of course the way to
do that is to post it all again, verbatim, with your retraction inserted
at the top.

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098; <gwoods [at] acm>; <g.a.woods [at] ieee>; <woods [at] robohack>
Planix, Inc. <woods [at] planix>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods [at] weird>

Nigel.Metheringham at dev

Apr 26, 2002, 1:15 AM

Post #2 of 8 (900 views)
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Re: Administrivia: Take down requests [In reply to]

On Thu, 2002-04-25 at 22:46, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> Now as to the niggling little "personal" details that might be attached
> to any of your posts (such as your name and your e-mail address and
> whatever sundry info you might put in your signature), well I think
> anyone who thinks they can use a privacy law to have that information
> protected is at least very naive, if not just plain insane.

Its very debatable as to whether there is any problem under the UK/EU
Data Protection legislation for this sort of thing. However its not
been tested in court, the hosting ISPs aren't interested in becoming
part of a test case, and its criminal not civil law (so the complainant
doesn't need to shell out costs, but does need to persuade the
appropriate authorities that its worth looking at - which is likely to
be the place where these things fail, except there are few cases being
bought and they may be bored or want to map out the limits of the law).

My action plan now is:-
- rehash the archives to blind out email addresses
good anti spam measure which has only not been done
because the current archiver is not capable.

- ensure that every current member and all new members get
informed explicitly that postings are publically archived,
how to avoid this, and that by posting you agree to the
exposure of your message

- to ensure that all posters have seen the above restrictions.
this means all non-member postings will be rejected - even
if you are a member under a different email address etc.

Nigel.
--
[ Nigel Metheringham Nigel.Metheringham [at] InTechnology ]
[. - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]

flavell at a5

Apr 26, 2002, 2:55 AM

Post #3 of 8 (906 views)
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Re: Administrivia: Take down requests [In reply to]

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Leonardo Boselli wrote:

> 2. I am not a legal expert, but i have on hand the italian law, that is
> based on the EU one.
> The 675 law give someone the right to ask cancellation of his
> personal data from an archive, so Nigel should just modify the
> occurrences of this person name and address in the archives (it is
> just a simple batch command). The law say also that the one that
> collected the data should pass the request to all other people to
> whic the data have been given,
[...]

So you're saying that the law doesn't merely _permit_ Nigel to tell us
who the complainant was, it positively _requires_ him to do so? Nice
one.

I'd like to put on record my appreciation of Nigel's good work in
maintaining the archive, and extend my sympathies for the extra effort
and aggravation to which this incident has undoubtedly subjected him.
Thank You.

leo at dicea

Apr 26, 2002, 3:27 AM

Post #4 of 8 (897 views)
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Re: Administrivia: Take down requests [In reply to]

On 26 Apr 2002, at 10:55, Alan J. Flavell wrote:
> So you're saying that the law doesn't merely _permit_ Nigel to tell us
> who the complainant was, it positively _requires_ him to do so? Nice
> one.
No ... the law says that if someone require that h?? name be
removed from the list, it have to be removed , and this fellow have
to receive information about who has received the copy of the "list".
The oddity is that _this_ list of people that got the list so the fellow
can idividually require to be removed is another list that could be
under the same rules ...
and even more odd: Even if all the other people aggree, If the fellow
sends a "remove me" request to every one that have had his
address implicitely give them again his data !
The reason is that the law is mainly for [more detailed] personal
informations, not merely for addresses (otherwise would be an
impossible task !)
so one would have to remove personal information, but has right to
keep the signed letter that rtequire to be removed !

Leonardo Boselli (NIT)
Dipartimento Ingegneria Civile
Universita` di Firenze
Via Santa Marta 3
I-50139 Firenze
+39 055-4796-431
+39 348-8605-348
fax 055-495-333

flavell at a5

Apr 26, 2002, 11:35 AM

Post #5 of 8 (898 views)
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Re: Administrivia: Take down requests [In reply to]

On Fri, 26 Apr 2002, Leonardo Boselli wrote:

> No ... the law says that if someone require that h?? name be
> removed from the list, it have to be removed , and this fellow have
> to receive information about who has received the copy of the "list".

My apologies - I had misinterpreted your mail to say that the list
owner has to pass on the remove-request to anyone else who has
received the list.

Sorry.

leo at dicea

Apr 26, 2002, 12:17 PM

Post #6 of 8 (897 views)
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Re: Administrivia: Take down requests [In reply to]

On 26 Apr 2002, at 19:35, Alan J. Flavell wrote:
> > No ... the law says that if someone require that h?? name be
> > removed from the list, it have to be removed , and this fellow have
> > to receive information about who has received the copy of the
> > "list".
> My apologies - I had misinterpreted your mail to say that the list
> owner has to pass on the remove-request to anyone else who has
> received the list.
No apologies ... it was me that wrote in an ambiguous way:
But the law too is a bit ambiguous itself ... anyway, whatever is the
interpretation, to remove someopne from an archive one must
KNOW who is the people, either if is Nigel or the gut that send the
request ...

Leonardo Boselli
nucleo informatico e telematico
Dipartimento Ingegneria Civile
Universita` di Firenze
V. S. Marta 3 - I-50139 Firenze
tel +39()0554796431
cel +39 3488605348
fax +39()055495333
http://www.dicea.unifi.it/~leo

woods at weird

Apr 26, 2002, 2:52 PM

Post #7 of 8 (898 views)
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Re: Administrivia: Take down requests [In reply to]

[. On Friday, April 26, 2002 at 21:17:53 (+0200), Leonardo Boselli wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [Exim] Administrivia: Take down requests
>
> On 26 Apr 2002, at 19:35, Alan J. Flavell wrote:
> > > No ... the law says that if someone require that h?? name be
> > > removed from the list, it have to be removed , and this fellow have
> > > to receive information about who has received the copy of the
> > > "list".
> >
> > My apologies - I had misinterpreted your mail to say that the list
> > owner has to pass on the remove-request to anyone else who has
> > received the list.
>
> No apologies ... it was me that wrote in an ambiguous way:
> But the law too is a bit ambiguous itself ... anyway, whatever is the
> interpretation, to remove someopne from an archive one must
> KNOW who is the people, either if is Nigel or the gut that send the
> request ...

I think the point is that everyone who was a subscriber at any time when
the complainant posted to the list may have archived copies of that
person's "personal" information and will thus have to receive a copy of
the complaint (at least all those in jurisdictions covered by privacy
laws like this).

Though it's probably impossible to know the exact set of subscribers who
may have received copies of the complainant's posts, the most effective
way to reach everyone is to just post the complaint verbatim to the list
as we all may have archives that are potentially publically accessible.

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098; <gwoods [at] acm>; <g.a.woods [at] ieee>; <woods [at] robohack>
Planix, Inc. <woods [at] planix>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods [at] weird>

exim-users at davidpashley

Apr 29, 2002, 2:53 AM

Post #8 of 8 (901 views)
Permalink

Re: Administrivia: Take down requests [In reply to]

On Tuesday 23 April 2002 6:35 pm, Phil Pennock wrote:
> On 2002-04-23 at 10:30 -0700, Greg Webster wrote:
> > I'd say ignore the request. If it goes further, call up the Electronic
> > Freedom Foundation.
>
> They're USA-based. Nigel's UK-based.
>
> Hint: the British judicial system is not as clued about the Internet as
> the US judicial system is. Stop, pause, think how unclued the US system
> is.

You'll probably find they are using the Data Protection Act, which is designed
to prevent the kind of privacy abuses you get in other parts of the world.

Nigel, I would suggest you get in contact with the Information Commisioner at
www.dpr.gov.uk. I'll have a think about how the DPA works in this case.

--
David Pashley
david [at] davidpashley
Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.

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